TeXStudio is the most complete LaTeX Editor

It was mid 2012, first time when I installed TeXstudio version 2.3, on my PC. ‘Peaceful‘ was the word, I used to describe it then after. TeXstudio has now gradually inched to version 2.7 and by time being even more peaceful and wonderful. Wonder why did I call it ‘peaceful’?

Writing LaTeX is a real pain, when you are willing to write a long document or article, which in my case are mathematics blogs and books. It was a great headache to write math commands points by point until I installed TeXstudio. After I played with TeXstudio for Windows a couple of days, I understood how it functions. and that was the start of great time for me. No more remembering all the LaTeX codes, no more external compilers and no more annoying extra plugins to be installed. TeXstudio sports such great features which literally reduces your effort to half or even less than that. It offers beautiful designs (yep, a Mac OS feeling on Windows), easy template wizards and quick compilers. Some other noticeable features of this app are auto-fill suggestions, syntax-highlighting, real-time viewing, spell and reference check, bibliography support and profile management. I’ll be discussing more about these features later, but before we follow-up , let’s recall the background of the app.

About TeXstudio

TeXstudio is an integrated writing environment for creating LaTeX documents. It is an Open Source application, available for major desktop platforms, Windows, Linux, BSD and Mac OS. TeXStudio is a team project of Benito van der Zander, Jan Sundermeyer, Daniel Braun and Tim Hoffmann, forked from the TeXMaker application, a non-open source application, which open-source development stalled in 2009. Actually, TeXstudio was aimed to be a set of extensions for TeXMaker and was then called TeXMakerX. In 2009,TeXMakerX was renamed as TeXstudio and made completely open-source application. TeXstudio completely differs to TeXMaker in philosophy and slightly in features. TeXMaker still exists, is free of charge and get updates regularly but the development is strictly non-open.

Features

Easy Writing and Editing

TeXstudio provides simpler writing experience, with bunch of premade TeX templates and quick wizards. As first time user, you can just open the application, open File –> New from template and you are ready to go. If you want to save the edited .tex file to somewhere else and not in the TeXstudio’s default folder, you may also select your preferred destination folder.

Document Wizard in TeXstudio

Remember that, TeXstudio builds five or more files at once, therefore you should better use a blank folder for a single document. This will place all files to that blank folder and there will not arise any hindrance in compiling the final document.

five files, when you start creating a document from an article template

Experienced users can start with a blank new file from File –> New. The regular Microsoft Office shortcuts also work with TeXstudio.

Some useful features used while writing are:

auto completion

Auto Completion: As you write any Math/LaTeX command, editor suggests you what should come the next and auto-completes your command.

Others: You can place bookmarks within a document at ease, customize the shortcuts, menus and toolbars, drag and drop images to the document directly and can add tables too.

Instant Previews

Write your document, go to Tools –> Build & View or simply press F1 key and you’ll see instant pdf/ps previews on the right side of your editor. There is no need of any external apps/plugins. The preview supports zooming and dragging, and is very convenient to use.

Write a bit

Build it and Preview!

Compiling

You can compile and publish a document by Tools –> Compile or by F6 key. The compiled document can be found in the destination folder you chosen earlier, while creating the document. After compiling is complete, you folder will have at least seven files instead of five. You may read them using suitable readers.

compiled files

Profile Management

You may customize and save TeXstudio’s behavior in profiles. Each time you need a different behavior from the app, chose a different profile.

Bibliography Support

In the reference section of your document, you can easily add foot-notes, credits and other bibliographic items easily using Bibliography menu.

You write: “TeXMaker application, a non-open source application” and “the development is strictly non-open”. These are two different things. Texmaker is released under the GNU General Public License => http://www.xm1math.net/texmaker/index.html.

“TeXstudio completely differs to TeXMaker in (…) features”: False. I use both. TeXstudio and TeXmaker are very close. Most features are identical. TeXstudio is better in some areas but TeXmaker scores on other. Both are very good LaTeX editors.

On the first note, the development… uh.. Open Development of TexMaker is no further possible. I tried to obtain the source codes of both the applications but TexMaker was nowhere available.
On the second, yes you were correct. I have corrected the post with your inputs.
Thank you Proserplne.

Also, to claim that “the [TeXmaker] development is strictly non-open” seems excessive. On the author’s site, you can read “To propose some code, just make a patch from the latest source tarball and click on the “Contact” link.”

The first and foremost advantage is the continued development. Others are already mentioned in the post, like:
* An all in one package for all LaTeX editing needs
* Available for all desktop OS
* Inbuilt compiler and viewer
If you are really looking for a $\LaTeX$ based solution – I’ll surely suggest TexStudio.